A Year in the Hollow
by deepfriedcake
Summary: Follow Luke Danes and Lorelai Gilmore through their first year of acquaintance in the quaint little town of Stars Hollow. Month by month, their mutual love for Lorelai's daughter Rory causes the bond between the two of them to grow continually stronger. Starts with a story formerly posted as a one-shot, "Mother's Day Special."
1. Mother's Day Special

This short tale popped into my head today, probably because in my current story, Luke and Lorelai have been reminiscing so much about their early days in the diner. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

The playing cards slapped rhythmically against the counter, some of them ending up at a slight tilt because of a few gouges in the well-used wooden surface.

Luke Danes studied the solitaire game he'd just dealt himself, looked up at the empty diner, and then, with a sigh, bent his head once more to the cards.

The diner had only been open for a couple of years, but already Luke was learning the seasonal eating patterns of Stars Hollow. Today, Mother's Day, he knew not to expect a crowd. A small town diner, with nothing special on the menu besides the normal patty melts and fries, wasn't the place to bring Mom to celebrate her big day. The regular breakfast customers had been in early, along with the handful of church-goers grabbing danishes on the way to services. Dinnertime would see a trickle of those wanting salads or sandwiches, something light to offset the heavy buffets they'd tackled in Hartford, or the home-cooked carry-ins they'd eaten at their daughters' houses. He'd already known he was facing a slow day, but he wasn't expecting it to move by at such a glacial pace. He was glad, though, that he hadn't scheduled anyone to work besides himself. It was bad enough that he was stuck here.

Another sigh and he moved a red queen on top of a black king, wondering if he should just close the diner for a couple of hours. Go upstairs and watch a baseball game, maybe. Anything to break up the monotony of this long Sunday afternoon.

The bells over the door jingled suddenly in the quiet. The unexpected noise made him jump, and the black jack he'd just turned over went flying to the floor.

It was a girl, dark-haired and neat, tiptoeing her way up to the counter. She was at that age Luke distrusted the most, past childhood but not yet a teenager. Right at that age when smart mouths and attitudes flourished, minus any maturity to regulate them. And this one was alone, without a parent close by to try and maintain control.

Great. Just what the afternoon needed.

"Help you?" he asked brusquely, not even bothering with all of the words needed to make it a complete sentence.

The girl nodded, giving him a sort of embarrassed smile.

The smile made him look at her more closely. He knew, then, who she was, and that made him even more uneasy. She was the daughter of that woman. The pretty, annoying one. _Lorelai._ He hated to think what _her_ kid would be like without adult supervision.

He frowned. "So, what do you want?"

She took a big breath. "I'd like a cup of coffee, please."

He snorted a contemptuous laugh. "Yeah, right. That'll happen right after I run next door and buy you a pack of cigarettes. Forget it, kid."

The girl flushed and her eyes got bigger. "No, I don't mean_ I_ want a cup of coffee. I want to get a cup of coffee for my mom."

Luke made a show of looking all around the empty diner. "Funny, I don't see your mother here."

"No, she's at home. I want to get a cup of coffee and take it home, to surprise her."

"She doesn't already have coffee at home?"

"Yeah, but she likes yours better." The girl bobbed her head, an imitation of a move he'd already seen the mother make numerous times. "She says there's nothing she loves more than your coffee. Except me." The girl gave him that shy smile again, taking him so by surprise that he almost smiled back.

He pulled his face back into sternness. "You got money?"

She nodded, sliding a hand into the pocket of her jeans.

"What'd you do, rob your piggy bank?" he questioned, watching her stack coins on the counter.

Her cheeks went pink again. "Sort of."

Luke quirked his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest, silently letting her know that she was going to have to give him more of an explanation than that before he was going to trust her with a cup of coffee.

She licked her lips and looked down at her feet, giving a deep sigh before she met his gaze again. "Today's Mother's Day," she said.

"I'm aware of that."

She nodded. "And Mom always says that she wouldn't get to celebrate Mother's Day at all if it wasn't for having me, so instead of me getting her a gift, we always go out and do something together. I usually make her a card, and before we moved to our own house, Sookie or Mia would help me make her some cookies or something. Since we live at our own home now, I don't see them as much. But it's Mother's Day, and Mom's taking a bath with the good scented bubble bath before we go to the zoo, and I thought I'd sneak out and be ready to surprise her with a cup of coffee when she got out. I checked on the menu, so I know how much it costs." She pointed at the coins she'd carefully arranged on the counter.

Luke chewed his bottom lip. As much as he wanted to trust the kid, there was still something not quite adding up for him. "Where's your father?" he asked abruptly, thinking that might help to clarify the situation for him. "Can't he help you get something for her?"

She tipped her face up, her deep blue eyes snapping. "My mother isn't interested in dating anyone right now," she informed him haughtily.

"Geez!" Luke raised his hands at her in alarm. "Where'd that come from? All I asked is where your father is."

"And that question is usually followed up by an offer to 'help' my mother with something, usually over drinks," the girl said pointedly. "So I'm saving you some trouble by letting you know she's not looking to date anyone right now."

"And I'm not interested in dating her!" Luke was offended, and oddly, a little embarrassed. "I already know your mother's crazy. And anyway, who'd try to ask out a woman through her kid?"

"You'd be surprised," she muttered darkly, all at once looking older than she had just a few minutes before.

"Geez," Luke sighed, despairing over the state of the world. He looked over at the carafe full of coffee. "You promise me this is going to her, right? You're not going to sneak some sips on the way home, are you?"

"No," she promised earnestly, making that 'cross my heart' motion over her chest.

"Well, I guess…" Still feeling hesitant, he nevertheless turned and started to walk over to the back counter.

"Thank you!" She walked closer to the cash register, watching him. "And, about my dad…I think maybe he's in Oregon right now."

"Oh?" Luke deliberately didn't look over at her.

"Yeah. He's not real good about keeping in touch."

Luke shook his head. "Sorry."

The girl shrugged. "We're kind of used to it."

Their home situation suddenly became clearer to Luke. The young woman, trying valiantly to make a home for her daughter. No father in the picture. The girl robbing a piggy bank to pay for a cup of coffee for her mom.

He swallowed hard, trying to separate a to-go cup from the stack.

"_It doesn't cost anything to be nice, Luke. You'll always remember that, won't you, honey?"_

He heard the voice as if the speaker was once again right beside him. He closed his eyes, picturing her sandy brown hair swinging back and forth in a ponytail. He could feel her loving arms around him, safely keeping him anchored on the stepstool so that he was tall enough to reach the counter. She was helping him stir up cake batter, because they were baking a cake to take to their neighbors. He couldn't remember why anymore. But his mother's words, said lightly to him on that long ago afternoon…those he remembered perfectly.

He put down the small to-go cup and picked up the largest one he had. He filled it up with coffee and snapped on the lid. And then, his mother's words still echoing in his memory, he grabbed a Styrofoam container and shoved two portions of apple pie into it. He closed the lid and set it and the cup in front of the girl.

"Here you go," he said gruffly.

"Oh, no, I can't…" Panicked, the girl pointed at the small puddle of coins on the counter.

"On the house," Luke insisted. "Mother's Day special."

"But –" she began, still protesting.

"Look, just have a nice day with your mom, OK?" His jaw tensed, trying not to let this young girl see what was prompting his sudden generosity. "Sometimes…those days go by too fast. So just enjoy this one with her, OK?"

She nodded, her big blue eyes now looking at him in awe.

"What's your name?" he asked, surprising himself by asking. He was even more surprised to realize he really wanted to know.

"Rory," she said, a little shyly again. "I'm named after my mother."

Luke frowned. "How can that be? Isn't her name Lorelai?"

"Yeah, my name's Lorelai, too, but I've always been called Rory."

"How the hell – heck – do you get Rory out of Lorelai?" he asked, flummoxed.

A mischievous glimmer settled down over her. "According to my mother, with much cursing and _a lot_ of Demerol."

A laugh barked out of Luke before he could stop it, because he knew he shouldn't be laughing at such a grown up comment coming out of a pre-teen's mouth. He looked at her – _Rory_ – with more interest. He saw the self-satisfied look on her face, having successful delivered the joke. He could see the pretty woman she was going to grow up to be, as pretty as her mother. And apparently with just as smart of a mouth, too.

He shook his head at himself, wondering how much torment these two might heap on him as the years went by.

"Thanks, Mr. Danes," Rory said, picking up the containers.

"It's Luke," he told her. "You don't have to bother with the Mr. Danes nonsense in here. And in fact, you might tell your mother my name's Luke, too. Seems like she can't quite get that through her head, in spite of my name being on every single menu _and_ on the front window." He motioned towards the yellow script flowing across the glass, trying not to let the irritation over continually being called 'Duke' be too obvious.

"Oh, she knows your name," Rory said with her mother's cheeky grin, turning to leave.

"She does?" Luke asked skeptically.

"Oh, yeah." Rory turned at the door, smiling openly at him. "She just wants to see what you'll do to make her stop."

"She – she wants –" Luke sputtered.

"Bye, Luke. Thanks!" Rory said, before he could find his voice. She bobbed her head again and hurried out of the diner, carrying home her prizes.

The door closed behind her, the bells jingling again. Luke looked down at the cards, unable to work up any enthusiasm for his interrupted game. Instead he looked over at the phone on the wall. He wondered if he could find his sister's number. Maybe he'd call her. It had been a while since they'd talked.

Slowly he walked over to the phone, pulling out his wallet as he went, trying to remember where he'd written down her number.

Because no matter what, wishing somebody a happy Mother's Day would be a nice thing to do.


	2. The Father's Day Project

**Author's Notes:** Yes, this has become a thing! Instead of a short story, _"Mother's Day Special,"_ it's morphed into a series. Hope you'll join me each month as we follow Luke and Lorelai through their first year of acquaintance, and watch as their mutual love of Rory causes the bond between the two of them to grow continually stronger. This month, June, is focused on Father's Day.

Thanks:

To **_Fish Bag_**, for suggesting we all try to write a Father's Day story.

To**_ Eledgy_**, for allowing me to 'borrow' Ed Tallman from her current WIP, _Variations in the Key of Luke_. Even though our stories are taking place in separate universes, I love thinking that Ed is somehow in both of them!

To **_Mr. DFC,_** who patiently instructed me on woodworking techniques, complete with visual aids. Thanks, hon!

* * *

**The Father's Day Project**

"Hi, Luke."

The timid voice almost sounded as if it was coming out of the countertop. Luke looked up from his work, momentarily disoriented. The afternoon light filtering into the diner was so dim he could barely make out the bowed head of the brown-haired girl standing before him.

"Hi, Rory," he said, and his almost-friendly tone made her lift her head and smile at him. He glanced around the dining room. "Where's your mom?"

"She's got a headache, so she stayed home today. But it's OK. I've got permission to go by myself to the library."

Knowing that he wasn't going to have to spar with Lorelai Gilmore made him breathe easier, but her absence unexpectedly brought along a helping of disappointment, too. He ignored the conflicting sentiments and focused on his young customer.

"In case you didn't notice, this _isn't_ the library," he pointed out to her, unable to completely suppress a grin.

Her smile grew brighter. "Yeah, I can tell that by the sad lack of reading materials in here. But since the diner is on the way _to_ the library, I think I'm still basically following the rules."

"We might just have to agree to disagree about that," he said lightly, deciding it wasn't his place to teach her about truth and ethics. "Do you want something to eat?"

She shook her head, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

Luke studied her, wondering what was up. "Was there something you wanted?"

She nodded, still not looking at him.

He waited a few seconds, trying not to grow impatient. "Rory, if you want something, you've got to tell me what it is. I'm not a mind-reader."

She nodded again and bit at her bottom lip. "Um, I was hoping…that is, wondering…I kind of wanted to talk to you about something."

"Sure." Luke shrugged. "Shoot."

"You mean right now?" Her eyes grew wide in panic.

"Yeah." He looked at her curiously. "Why, did you want to make an appointment and come back later?"

"No," she said slowly. "I guess… that would be silly." She sighed and appeared to gather up courage before turning and seating herself at a table a few feet away from the counter.

Luke didn't know whether to laugh or to beat his head against the counter. It had become increasingly apparent to him that his Mother's Day kindness had earned him a little friend. He assessed the current workload in the diner. A few tables were filled, but one of his waitresses, Jolene, was on top of their needs. He could surely spare a couple of minutes to find out what was troubling Rory.

He gathered his papers together and laid them out of the way at the end of the counter before joining Rory at the table she'd chosen. It felt odd to him, to pull out a chair and sit down. That was something he'd rarely done since the diner had opened. The diner looked strange from his seated perspective, and he studied the dining room with new eyes.

"What were you working on?" Rory asked, pointing at the papers he'd left on the counter.

Luke leaned back in the chair, getting comfortable. He linked his fingers over his stomach, taking the chance to relax. "I was thinking maybe it was time to add some new items to the menu, so I was going through some possible recipes, trying to figure out how much the ingredients would cost, and how long it would take us to make the dish back in the kitchen."

Rory's forehead crinkled up as she thought about what he'd said. "If you added new stuff, does that mean you'd have to take something else away?"

"Maybe. Not sure yet. Maybe I'd try them as specials first."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't want you to change the menu. It's good just the way it is."

Luke chuckled. "Yeah, that's probably the reaction I'd get from everybody else, too. Sometimes I get tired of frying boring old burgers, though. Sometimes I feel like trying something new."

Now Rory looked guilty. "Sorry. You should do it then," she urged, trying to be supportive. "Just don't get rid of the mac'n'cheese, OK?"

"Don't worry, I won't," he promised. "So what do you want to talk about?"

She blew out a huge breath and then scooted to the edge of her chair, preparing for what looked to be a most serious talk. "Do you remember on Mother's Day, when you asked me about my dad?"

"Sure." Tension began to gather in him for no discernible reason.

"Well, it made me think about him, and about how we haven't seen him in a really long time. So I talked to Mom about it, and she made some calls, and now we know where he is."

"Is that right," Luke murmured, trying hard to make his voice remain neutral.

"Yeah, it turns out he's not in Oregon after all. He's in New York, which, you know, isn't too far away from here."

"What kind of a –" Luke clenched his jaw, hard, stifling the comment he wanted desperately to make. It wasn't Rory's fault that her jackass of a father didn't even let his ex and little girl know where he was living. "Yeah, New York's not too far," he agreed through gritted teeth. "I hear they've got phones and everything there."

Rory nodded happily, his snide comment going right over her head. "So he's coming here for Father's Day, to see me!"

Luke pushed away his negative thoughts and instead concentrated on the shining blue eyes in the girlish face across the table from him. "That's great, Rory. I bet you guys will have a fun day."

The sparkle disappeared and she slumped down slightly. "But that's the problem. I don't know what we should do."

"Well, I'm sure your mom –"

"No Mom." Rory cut in. "She made that _crystal_ clear on the phone to him. She said that this was his day with me, and she wasn't going to be involved with it. She told him it was time he interacted with his offspring on his own."

Luke tried to hide a smile as Rory repeated what she'd obviously overheard her mother say on the phone. He'd bet good money_ that_ had been a mighty interesting conversation.

"I was trying to come up with a Father's Day plan, but then I thought, hey, _you're_ a guy."

"What gave me away? The baseball cap?" He put a hand on top of his head, smiling openly this time to let her know he was teasing her a bit.

She gave him a look that told him she was disappointed that he wasn't taking her serious talk seriously enough. "I thought you could give me some ideas about what guys like to do. Or you could tell me stuff that you usually did on Father's Day with your dad, maybe, when you were a kid."

A swift kaleidoscope of images swirled through Luke's head, of hospital rooms and x-rays and an endless parade of people in white coats. But none of that was anything that Rory needed to know about for years and years and years, or_ ever_, please God. So he pushed back the most recent memories and searched for some from happier times.

"Well, let's see. My dad liked to fish, so we probably went fishing a time or two. Or went out and tossed a baseball around, while we waited for the grill to get hot enough to cook the steaks. Since I had a little sister, it wasn't usually all about what I wanted to do. We had to include her too."

Rory looked alarmed. "I don't know how to fish!"

"Oh, you don't have to –"

"Or play ball!" She twisted back and forth anxiously on her seat. "I'm not good at sports! I suck at hand-eye coordination!"

"Hey, hey." Luke leaned forward. "You don't have to do any of that stuff. That's just what my dad and I liked to do."

"But that's guy stuff, right? That's the sort of stuff guys like to do, and I want Dad to do something he likes to do, so he won't hate being here."

"He's not going to hate being here," Luke said sharply, disliking this unknown guy more with every sentence out of Rory's mouth. He tried to think of a way to calm her. "What do you usually do together?"

She looked at him blankly.

"What did you do the last time you saw him?" Luke asked, trying to jog her memory.

"We ate at a fancy restaurant, I think." Her forehead puckered under the strain. "But I think mostly he just talked to Mom."

"Uh huh," Luke muttered. He could have guessed that.

"One time he took us to a concert, but we left because Mom got mad. She said it was too loud for me."

"Right." Luke drummed his fingers against the table. He sat up straighter, having a sudden breakthrough. "What about the last time he was here? What did you guys do that time?"

Rory shook her head. "He's never been here before. That's one of the reasons why I want this day to be fun for him, so he'll want to come back again, even if it isn't Father's Day."

"He's never been here?" Luke was confused, thinking he must have gotten some facts wrong. "How long have you lived in Stars Hollow?"

"Mom moved us here when I was one." Rory confirmed the facts as Luke had heard them.

"And he's never been here?" The accusatory words broke out of him before he could temper his outrage. "Why the - why not?"

"Um, I don't know." She looked at him with concern, seemingly trying to judge his mood. "We just usually went to see him." She paused a little bit. "When he lived close enough," she added.

Once again he tried to reel in his desire to verbally stomp this guy into the ground. "Look, Rory, he's the adult here. It's up to him to take care of you when he's with you. He's the one who should have the plan. You don't have to have it all figured out."

"Maybe, but that's the way I am. I like to have a plan. In fact, most of the time I like to have two plans, in case the first one doesn't work out." The smile she gave him was both plucky and unassuming , sort of like she was making fun of herself while trying to give him the message that however strange the relationship with her father was, it was all OK with her.

_Geez, she's a great kid_. The thought popped up in his brain, unbidden and practically aglow in bright neon letters, making Luke shake his head at his unaccustomed sentimentality.

"How about this?" he suggested. "You play tour guide for the day. Show him the town. Take him to your school, and to the library, or anywhere else you go all the time. Heck, take him to Doose's, and Taylor will talk his leg off. That will be a good way for him to catch up on what's going on in your life. Maybe you could even watch a movie at the bookstore, or something. They usually show something family-friendly on Sundays."

Rory perked up immediately. "Wow, that's a great idea! I could take him to Kim's and introduce him to Lane. We could take a tour of the porcelain unicorn shops. And we could even come here!"

Luke frowned. "Why?"

She was really excited now, bouncing a little bit in the chair. "After I've shown him everything else, we could come here and get something to eat."

"Oh, well, uh, sure. I guess." He couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the idea, in spite of Rory's excitement. In fact, he was pretty sure that being in the same room with her absentee father was a recipe for disaster.

"Cool. Do I need to reserve a table?" she asked earnestly.

"I doubt there will be that much of a crowd."

She looked at him worriedly, chewing on her thumb, her anxiety-ridden blue eyes almost breaking his heart.

"Fine." He couldn't believe he was doing this. "I'll make sure there's a table for you and your dad on Father's Day."

"Thank you!" She let out a big breath of relief. "I'm so glad I came to you about this. I feel so much better now."

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, wishing he could say the same. "Now that your problem's solved, are you hungry?"

"Nope!" She jumped out of the chair. "I'd better run to the library and get back home before Mom starts to worry." She pushed the chair back underneath the table, waved at him, and then skittered out the door.

Luke got up, pushing his chair in as well. He took another moment to look around his diner, transitioning from being Rory's adviser to restaurant owner. Soon he was back behind the counter, dealing with the first of the evening's customers. Before too long, Rory's MIA father was as absent from Luke's mind as the guy himself was from Rory's life.

* * *

The dad stayed forgotten until a Saturday afternoon two weeks later, when Luke once again found Rory standing before the counter. And the only reason he thought of him then was because she brought him up.

"Everything's ready for tomorrow, right?" she asked him, worry overlaying her serious little face.

"Tomorrow?" he asked blankly.

"Tomorrow!" she insisted. "Father's Day," she prompted him.

He stared at her for about a second too long, causing her to shift from one foot to another and look at him reproachfully. "Luke! It's Father's Day. You promised me!"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure," he mumbled, trying to fit the pieces together.

"You'll have a table for me and my dad, right?" she questioned him anxiously.

"Sure. Of course. No problem." He threw out the reassuring phrases mindlessly, wanting the distressed look on her face to go away. He flung out an arm, pointing at a table. "That one, right there. OK?"

She visibly relaxed, following his arm. "Oh, yeah, that's fine." Almost instantly she frowned again, looking apologetic this time. "I don't know exactly when we'll get here, though. Is that a problem?"

"No, of course not. It's your table for the whole day, Rory. It doesn't matter when you get here."

She sighed, as if the weight of the world was all on her fragile little shoulders. "Thanks for helping me with this. I just really want the day to be a perfect one, you know?"

Suddenly that was all Luke wanted for her, too. "It will be, Rory. I'm sure it will."

"OK," she sighed again, before taking a breath and gracing him with a big smile. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you," he agreed, watching as she hustled to the door. He was surprised to see that Lorelai was waiting for her there. He'd been so focused on Rory he hadn't even noticed her mom.

Lorelai pushed back Rory's hair, letting her hand linger on the girl's face for a moment before opening the door. Rory hopped outside, but Lorelai unexpectedly turned back. Her eyes sought out Luke's, connecting solidly with him when their gazes met. So far he'd only ever seen her smiling and silly, her mouth running through more words in a few minutes than he even thought of in a day. Seeing her standing there, still and thoughtful, was a revelation. She held his eyes, communicating more to him through that pensive stare than anyone else had said to him in years. A smile, one he thought appeared sad, turned her pretty lips up briefly. She nodded quickly to him and then exited behind her daughter.

Luke found himself frozen in place, long after the door had closed behind the Gilmore girls. He shook himself out from under the spell woven by the mother, and prayed that he wouldn't disappoint the faith of the daughter.

* * *

Afterwards, he couldn't get Rory's apprehensive face out of his mind. But even so, she was quiet enough that she managed to sneak up on him yet again, sometime after 2 o'clock the next afternoon.

"Hi," she whispered, standing this time off to the side of the counter.

"Hey, Rory!" he greeted her, probably too enthusiastically. He tried to look unobtrusively around the diner, searching for the undeserving dad. "Ready for your table?"

She visibly gulped. "No," she said miserably. "I'm not going to need it after all."

"Why not?" He positioned his elbows on the counter and leaned over, the better to smile at Rory. "Did you guys find something more fun to do?"

"No." She scratched at her nose and then looked down at her feet. "He's not coming," she admitted.

"You mean he's not here yet," Luke speculated, unable to accept what she'd just said.

"No, I mean…he's not coming at all." She took off the blue plastic headband holding back her straight brown hair, tossed her head, and then replaced the headband. "He called a little bit ago, said something came up and he couldn't make it today after all. I just wanted you to know, so you wouldn't waste the table." Despondently she turned towards the door.

"I'll bet your mom will come up with something fun for the two of you to do today," Luke threw out a little desperately, hoping that something would happen to put a smile back on her face.

She paused and looked back at him. "No. Mom's at work." She wrung her hands together, now appearing worried on top of her disappointment. "She waited at the house for as long as she could, but she had to get there in time for her shift. She tried to call Dad, but when he didn't answer we thought he was just running late."

"Your mom's at the Inn?" Luke came out from the counter and walked closer to Rory. "What are you going to do?" He realized suddenly that he didn't even know how old Rory was. Was she old enough to stay home alone? How old did kids have to be before they could stay home alone, anyway? "Do you have someplace to go?" Luke asked her, feeling inadequate.

"Well, I thought maybe Lane's…" Her eyes drifted to the other side of the square, visible through the front window. "But then I remembered they're at a church thing all day today." She scratched at her nose again, which Luke now recognized was a nervous habit. Her eyes shifted, following the street out of town, the one which eventually led to the Independence Inn.

"No, you can't," Luke said firmly, reading her mind. It didn't matter that he had traveled there on his own many times when he was young. He'd had a bike, he was a boy, and…well, things were different then. "It's too far," he added, trying to come up with some other reason to convince her besides bringing up scary predators.

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know then. I guess I'll just go back home. It'll be fine. I'll read or something."

"Maybe I could run you out there," Luke blurted.

Instantly, Rory turned grateful eyes to him. "Are you sure? Don't you need to be here when the diner's open?"

"It should be fine," he told her airily, waving a hand to encompass the space, which was currently boasting more staff than patrons. "Why don't I go call your mom and make sure that's OK with her?"

Rory nodded and he motioned for her to take a seat. He went to the phone on the wall behind the counter, pulling the Inn's number from somewhere out of his memory. The phone was promptly answered.

"Independence Inn. This is Lorelai." The pleasant, professionally friendly voice took him by surprise.

"Uh, yeah, hi Lorelai, this is Luke. Luke Danes, from the diner?"

"Oh?" she said, in a sort of lilting, teasing tone, making him feel like he was missing something obvious already. "What can I help you with, Duke from the diner?"

He turned so that his back was towards Rory. "I wanted to let you know that Rory is here. Alone. Her father didn't show."

"What," she said flatly, the teasing gone. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he's not here. He called her, I guess, and said he couldn't make it."

There were a few moments of deadly silence. Then Lorelai let loose with a string of curses. Luke was impressed with her creativity and in total agreement with her colorfully expressed sentiments. Suddenly she gasped, cutting off in mid-curse. "Oh, crap. Crappity, crap, crap. Did Rory just hear all of that?"

Luke glanced over his shoulder. "No, she's on the other side of the diner."

Lorelai sighed gustily. "I'm gonna kill him. This time, I'm really gonna do it. I knew it! I knew! I knew I shouldn't have left her there, waiting for him. I knew he'd screw this up today. Damn it, Christopher! Why can't you ever follow through?"

_Christopher._ Luke filed the name away and waited, letting her settle down.

She exhaled noisily again. "OK. Let me think how to solve this. Dang. I can't come right now - I'm the only one on desk. Maybe once Sookie finishes lunch – or maybe I could grab Eric or Sean or one of the other porters and ask them – or maybe I could call –"

"Or I could run her out to you," Luke cut in, getting to why he was calling.

His offer brought her rambling to a stop. "Are you sure? I hate to inconvenience you."

"Not a problem." An idea that had been brewing somewhere in the back of his mind suddenly became substantial enough to talk about. "I was sort of wondering, though, would it be OK if I maybe took her to do something kind of fun before I brought her out to the Inn?"

There was that potent silence again. "You like the kiddies, huh?" Lorelai at last asked lightly, but with a scathing undercurrent.

Anger made him grip the phone tighter. He turned another few inches away, not wanting Rory to hear one word, and dropped his voice down into a gruff rumble. "No, actually, I don't. In my experience, kids are generally rude, annoying, and sticky, even if they haven't been around anything that should have made them sticky in the past 24 hours. Rory, however, is none of those things. She's polite, intelligent, and non-sticky, and right now she's sitting here in my diner, devastated because your jerk of an ex couldn't be bothered to get his ass into town. If I can do something to get that sad-eyed look off of her face, I want to do it." He paused and took a breath, still angry. "As for the disgusting thing you were trying to imply – it's probably best if I just ignore that."

He heard her suck in some air. "Sorry," she said, now meek. "Sorry. You need to understand, Rory's the most important thing in my life, and I don't let her go off with just anyone. Usually there's a whole vetting process first. Multiple-page questionnaires. A credit check. Getting the local CSI unit to run fingerprints." She stopped for a moment. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything." Another brief pause, followed by more confession. "Well, yeah, I did, but I didn't really _believe_ it. I know you're just trying to help." Now she sounded miserably embarrassed.

"Look, I appreciate the fact that you barely know me, but if you have any doubts, go talk to Mia. She's known me since the day I was born. Or you said Sookie, a little bit ago? Sookie St. James, right? Go check with her. She'll vouch for my character, too. I don't blame you that you're cautious," he admitted grudgingly. "In this day and age, you need to be. If Rory was my kid, I'd fingerprint everybody between here and Hartford."

"Ah, you grasp my need to go ridiculously over the top on everything. Good to know." She paused again. "So where are you going to take Rory?"

"Not sure." Although that was no longer true. Luke actually did have a plan now, but he wasn't ready yet to voice it to Lorelai and have her shoot it down as something stupid. It would be easier on him to let the kid do it. "Does that mean I have your permission though?" he hopefully asked, not wanting to assume anything.

"Yes, you do. If you can cheer her up, I'd be forever grateful. Just let me know what you spend and I'll be happy to reimburse you when you drop her off."

"No, today's my treat. Don't worry about it."

"I'll owe you…something. Something big. Expect an extra tip after my next cup of coffee, mister."

Luke scoffed. "You mean after your next _five _cups of coffee, right?"

She laughed, a full, genuine laugh, and Luke felt proud that _he_ had made her laugh. "It's sad, you know me too well already. Hey, let me talk to Rory for a minute and tell her it's OK. We have a rule that she can't go off with any adult unless she hears it from me, or if the adult in question knows the secret word."

"Secret word?"

"Yeah, it's something safety experts recommend, to ensure that some random person or disgruntled family member can't just show up at your kid's school and claim they have permission to pick them up or something. If they don't have the secret word, then your child knows they shouldn't go with them."

"Gee, I can't imagine what your secret word might be. Bacon?"

She huffed with pretend indignation. "Oh, I'm much too creative for such a mundane secret word. Good try at getting me to spill it to you, though."

This time he was the one to chuckle. "Hang on, I'll call her over." He turned and waved at Rory, motioned towards the phone in his hand.

Rory crossed the diner quickly, but paused at the invisible border preventing her from going behind the counter. He nodded and swept his arm out in a gesture of welcome. She bounded up to him and eagerly took the phone.

"Hi, Mom." Her face grew alternately thoughtful, amused, and finally fed up as she listened. "Yeah, I know. No, I'm OK. He does?" She looked respectfully at Luke. "No, I want to! Yeah, really. OK. No, no bad vibes at all." She grinned at Luke. "Mom. Mom, stop." She rolled her eyes. "OK, Mom. I will. OK, see you later!" She tried to hang the phone up but wasn't quite tall enough, so Luke took over that task.

"Mom says I have to tell you this." With a long suffering sigh, Rory recited, "If you try anything funny with me, I'm supposed to yell, kick you where it counts, and run away. And Mom says you already know just what she means by that."

Luke thought back on the long litany of swearing he'd heard erupt from Lorelai's mouth a few minutes ago and grinned instead of turning red. "Yeah, I know what she means."

"We're going to go someplace before you take me to the Inn?"

"If that's OK with you."

She nodded vigorously, those blue eyes sparkling once again.

"Then go use the bathroom, because there's not going to be one where we're going," he advised her.

Her shiny eyes went round and she gasped in surprise before fleeing towards the restroom.

Luke watched her disappear behind the curtain, a small smile staying firmly on his mouth. Then he reached for the phone and searched his memory, needing one more number from long ago.

* * *

"This is your truck?" Rory asked, waiting on him to unlock the door of the faded old pickup truck.

"Yep," he answered, swinging the door open. He was prepared to give her a boost, but her legs were longer than he thought, and she scrambled up with no problem.

"Awesome," she declared, settling into her seat.

"Put on your seat belt," he reminded her, before shutting the door and heading over to the driver's side.

"Mom wants to get a Jeep," she told him as he climbed in.

"Why?" he asked, truly not seeing the connection between stylish Lorelai Gilmore and the ruggedness of a Jeep.

Rory shrugged. "Don't know. She says she's always wanted one and it would be cool."

"OK," Luke said, shrugging off her mother's crazy preferences. He started up the truck and pulled away from the curb. "Hey, Rory, how old are you?"

"I'm going to be 11 in October."

Luke smiled, remembering how with kids it was always how old you were going to be, not how old you were currently. "That makes you what? Fifth grade?"

"Yeah."

"Middle school next year, right?"

"Yeah." She fidgeted a little bit in her seat. "I'm a sort of nervous about that."

"Why? You'll still be with all the same kids, won't you?"

"Theoretically," she said, pronouncing each syllable of the word carefully. "But we have to change classes and go back and forth in the halls, and there are lockers and everything. Plus, this year we're the big kids, you know? Next year we go back to being the shrimps."

Luke chuckled. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"And now I'm tall," she added gloomily.

"You're what?" Luke questioned, remembering how she wasn't able to hang up the phone in the diner.

"Tall," Rory repeated. "Since Christmas I've grown. I'm like the tallest girl in my class now."

Luke glanced over at her. "Being tall's not bad. I was always one of the tallest ones in my class. Gets you all sorts of advantages, because you can reach right over the short kids. The teacher will ask you to go back and get things off the shelves."

Rory gave him a baleful look.

"Think of it this way. Maybe you'll be tall enough in the fall that no one will think you're a sixth-grader. They'll mistake you for a seventh-grader, and won't pick on you."

Her look changed to one of thoughtful approval. "Yeah, maybe so," she agreed.

"Of course, the bad thing is if people mistake you for an older kid, that means they expect you to act older, too. They won't cut you as many breaks because they'll think you're old enough to know better." He smiled at her, one tall person to another. "But with your maturity level, that shouldn't be a problem."

She smiled at his compliment, then shyly turned away, looking out of the truck's window. "Wow, we're way out of town already. Where are we going?"

"To a farm owned by Ed Tallman. Ed and my dad were really good friends."

"Did they have a fight?" she asked compassionately, twisting a little bit in her seat so she could see him.

"Did who have a fight?"

"Your dad and the farmer."

Luke broke out laughing. "No! Why would you ask that?"

"Because you said 'were.' You said they 'were' friends. So I thought maybe they had a fight, and that's why they're not friends anymore."

A lump formed in Luke's throat. "No, they were friends for…" He stopped for a moment, trying to decide how to explain it to her. Finally he decided to just come straight out with it. "My dad died a couple of years ago, Rory. But Ed and my dad were good friends until the very end."

He waited, steeling himself for her sympathy. When some time went by and she said nothing, he looked over at her, and found her face registering wide-eyed horror. It occurred to him then that for all of her maturity, she'd never experienced anything like this. She knew instinctively she'd said something she shouldn't have, but she had no idea how to rectify the situation.

"Hey, it's OK," he said, reaching over to gently pat her knee. "He's been gone long enough that it doesn't really hurt me to talk about it now. I still miss him, though."

She sucked in a big breath of air. "But I never would have said that, Luke, if I'd known. I'm really sorry, if I made you sad."

He cleared his throat, looking straight ahead through the windshield. "My dad got very sick before he died. I didn't want to remember those days at the end, and because I didn't want to remember those, I haven't been letting myself really remember anything else about him, either. But when you asked me the questions about Father's Day, it got me to thinking about him. I started to remember the fun stuff, the happy days I'd had with him. So I'm really grateful that you came to me and asked me about my dad. It's made me feel close to him again."

"Really?" Her voice squeaked with obvious relief.

"Really." He shot her another smile. "In fact, that's the reason we're heading out to Mr. Tallman's farm today. I remembered something else that I liked to do with my dad."

"What?" Rory asked eagerly.

"You'll find out in a minute."

"Tell me!"

"Patience," Luke solemnly told her, just the way his dad would have, once upon a time.

"Grasshopper," Rory muttered.

"What?"

"That's what Mom would say. 'Patience, Grasshopper.'"

Luke chuckled. "Oh, _Kung Fu._ Geez, haven't thought about that show for years, probably."

"Stick around Mom enough and you will. She loves throwing out lines from old TV shows. And movies. She _loves _movies."

"No wonder I never understand anything she tells me," Luke commented.

"Well, that, and she like to see if she can get you frazzled."

"She likes to…Why?" Once again, Luke felt like the conversation had somehow bypassed him.

"Don't ask me." Rory shrugged, but it seemed like there was suddenly an almost-adult look about her mouth, as if she was deliberately keeping back a secret. "That's just the way Mom is."

"O-kay," Luke said slowly, glad to see the lane leading back to the Tallman's farm appearing on his left. "We're here," he told Rory, making the turn. The truck bumped over a small culvert running underneath the drive.

Rory pressed her face against the window. "Wow, it's a real farm!"

"What did you think it was going to be?"

"I don't know, but nothing this big." Rory turned from side to side, taking in the wide fields and big red barns, finally staring at the gigantic tractor pulled up under the shade on the other side of the garage.

"Let's go up and say hi," Luke said, climbing out of the truck. He walked around and made sure she jumped down safely, then led the way to the porch of the farmhouse, where Ed Tallman sat, watching them approach.

"Hello, Luke," he said. "Who's your friend?"

"Hi, Ed. This is Rory Gilmore. Rory, this is Mr. Tallman."

"Hi," Rory managed to say, but it was obvious that her shyness had made a comeback.

"Welcome to the farm, Rory. Ready to milk a cow for me?"

Rory stepped closer to Luke, looking scared.

Just then a big golden dog came trotting around the edge of the house. He paused for a moment, sizing up the situation, then snatched up a ball lying in the grass and came bounding over to Rory, dropping it in front of her feet and ducking his head under her hand, wanting to be petted.

"Oh," she sighed happily, immediately petting away. "What a pretty dog! What's his name?"

"That's old Clinton. Looks like he'd like a game of fetch with you."

"Can I?" she asked Luke.

"Sure." Luke motioned to the orchard to the side of the house, where apple trees were neatly lined up. Rory grabbed the ball and she and Clinton ran off.

"How are you, Ed?" Luke brought his eyes back to the older man sitting comfortably on the porch glider.

"Can't complain." He looked piercingly at Luke. "It was a surprise to hear from you today, that's for sure."

"Sorry. Yeah, it's been too long."

"She's a cute little thing," Ed observed, gesturing towards where Rory was enthusiastically throwing the now-juicy ball to an equally enthusiastic dog.

"Yeah, she's a great kid," Luke agreed, also turning to watch.

"Is her mama that pretty too?"

"What?" Luke's head whipped back around to stare at Ed.

"You heard me. I just wondered if the reason you were taking such an interest in the little girl is because her mother is worth the attention."

Luke felt his eyes narrow and his mouth tense up in irritation.

Ed burst out laughing. "I know that look! Both you and your dad, just the same. Whenever I'd hit too close to the mark, that's just the way William would look, too."

"It's nothing like that." Luke shook his head while climbing the porch steps, not wanting his voice to carry over to where Rory might hear. "Rory had her heart set on spending today with her dad, but the jackass stood her up. I'm just trying to take some of the sting away."

Ed made a noise of disgust. "What kinda dad would do that to his little girl?"

"Don't know, and frankly, I don't want to know. Thanks, though, for letting me bring her out here. I hope it will take her mind off it for a little while." Luke reached for his wallet. "I figure I'll need a board and some nails –"

"Put your money away, son. You know I'm not going to take it."

"But –"

"You're doing a good thing, Luke. It'd make your dad proud. Hell, it makes me proud." Ed grinned at him. "That's worth a couple of boards and a pound of nails, if you ask me."

Luke put away his wallet. He knew he was no match for Ed's stubborn generosity. "Thanks," he offered instead.

"Just satisfy my curiosity, though," Ed suggested with a devilish smile. "_Is _the mother pretty?"

Inwardly, Luke sighed. "Yes," he unwillingly admitted.

"Knew it!" Ed cackled, delighted at forcing Luke's hand. "Just _how_ pretty?" he pressed on.

Instead of irritation, the teasing suddenly made him smile, remembering other days out here on the farm, his dad and Ed taking turns at bedeviling the kids. "Let's just say that if Rory grows up to look anything like her mom, she'll have boys following her all over town."

"But that fact doesn't have anything to do with your philanthropy, huh?"

"No, it doesn't," Luke said firmly. "Rory's a nice kid, and she doesn't deserve to suffer just because she got dealt a bad hand in the fatherhood game. But there's nothing going on between her mom and I. We really don't have anything in common."

"Hmm, seems like I can remember thinking the same thing about you and Rachel."

If there was one thing Luke disliked more than having people speculate about the women he _should_ be dating, it was discussing women he _had _once dated.

"So, Ed, are you having a good Father's Day so far?" he asked, deliberately changing the conversation.

"Can't complain. Everyone's supposed to gather out here about 6, I think. Say, did you know I'm going to be a grandpa again?"

"Yeah, I'd heard. Congratulations."

"Well, you know what they say. If I'd known grandkids were this much fun, I would've had them first."

"We'll probably be long gone by then, so tell Carol and Dave and everyone else hello for me." Luke stepped off the porch. "We'd better get busy here. Thanks again, Ed."

"You take care, Luke. Good to see you."

"Same to you. Oh, and happy Father's Day," Luke added, noting in amazement how easy those words were to say today.

Luke started towards the closest barn, calling to Rory as he went. She threw the ball one last time, then came flying over to join him, her cheeks flushed and a huge smile on her face.

"Thought you said you had lousy hand-eye coordination."

"I do."

"Not from what I saw. You were throwing a mean game of fetch with Clinton."

"But…he's just a dog."

"So? Throwing a ball is throwing a ball. I bet it wouldn't take much to improve your form, make you into a real ball player."

Rory looked confused. "Do I _want_ to be a real ball player?"

"You tell me. You were the one who sounded like maybe it mattered to you. If it does, let me know. I could probably find time to play some catch with you, give you some tips."

"Uh, OK." Rory gave a little shrug. "I'll think about it."

Luke opened up a side door, tucked under the eaves of the low building. He stepped aside to let Rory enter.

She poked her head in, stopped, and instantly pulled it back out. "It's dark in there. And it smells!"

"Your eyes will get used to the dark, and it only smells like cows."

"Cows?" She looked upset. "I don't really have to milk a cow, do I?"

"Not unless you want to." He hid a smile, took pity on her, and led the way inside. "Make sure you shut the door behind you."

"So the cows won't get out?" She quickly slammed the door closed behind her.

"The cows are probably all outside in the pasture this time of day," Luke reassured her. "Come on, follow me."

He opened another door and reached for the pullcord on an overhead light.

"It's a workshop!" Rory peeked in under his arm. "I've never seen so many tools!"

"Most of these belong to Mr. Tallman," Luke explained, "but some of these were my dad's. Once he passed on, Ed offered to let me keep whatever I wanted out here. I thought I'd come out sometimes, do some woodworking like we used to, but…" Luke stopped, shaking his head. "Somehow it didn't seem like I wanted to. Until now." He turned to Rory and gently smiled.

"What are you going to make?" Rory was walking around, looking at all of the tools scattered on the workbenches.

"_You_ are going to make a birdhouse."

Once again Rory looked panicked. "I don't know how to make a birdhouse!"

"You will after today," Luke promised her.

Rory laughed and threw up her arms in surrender. "Whatever you say! Sure, I'll make a birdhouse. Learn to play baseball. Why don't you bring me a cow? I'll milk it, too!"

"Well, let's not go too crazy here." Luke walked over to where lumber was stacked against one portion of the wall and picked out a pine board that was maybe 6 inches taller than Rory. He angled it towards the floor and sighted down the length of it.

"What are you doing?" Rory came up to stand beside him.

"Making sure the board is straight and not warped. Also, I want to make sure the wood's not split and doesn't have a lot of knots in it."

Rory tentatively put her hand on the board. "How is this going to become a birdhouse? It's just one piece of wood."

"We're going to cut up the board into all of the pieces we need to make a birdhouse. And you're going to learn the most important rule about woodworking."

"What's that?"

Luke placed the board down on a workbench, then turned and put his hands on Rory's shoulders. "Measure twice, cut once," he intoned seriously.

"That's important?"

"Sure is. Think about it. How many times can you measure something?"

"As many times as you want to, I guess."

Luke nodded. "And how many times can you cut it up?"

"Just once…Oh, I get it!"

"Good girl. Now, come here and look at the two sides." He pulled a small stepstool over for her to stand on, so that she could better access the work surface. He waited for her to examine the board, then flipped it over. "Which side do you think looks better?"

"Well, the other side has some scratches and some gouges in it, so I guess this side is prettier."

"You're right again. We want the better side to be the outside, so we'll flip it over, and make our marks on the scratched up side."

Luke reached up and snatched a T-square from where it was hanging on a pegboard in front of the workbench, and pulled a thick carpenter's pencil out of a mug. "Now you're going to start measuring. The first piece needs to be 10 inches long." He handed the T-square to her and showed her where the measurements were on it.

"First thing we're going to do is to measure down ten inches from the top of the board," Luke instructed her, and then watched as she carefully counted and made a mark. "Now do it again on this other edge, so you can draw a line between them."

"OK?" she asked after another measurement and a mark, surveying her work.

"You tell me. Do you think it's right?"

"Yes. I think so. Probably." She looked less confident with each word.

"How can you make sure?"

He could tell when it clicked with her. "Measure again!"

He nodded and motioned for her to check.

"It's right," she said with obvious relief.

"Great. Take the square and connect your marks, then." He showed her what he meant. "Now, this piece is going to be the front, so we'll write that here on this part of the board, so we don't get confused later on, when we've got more pieces."

"What's next?"

"Measure another ten inches down from the line we just drew. That's going to be the top of the birdhouse."

He watched as Rory measured, measured again, and then drew a line and wrote 'top' on that designated section of the board.

"Next you need to measure down 7-3/4 inches," he told her, when she looked at him for instructions. "This piece will be the back. It's shorter so that the top will slant down over it and the rain will run off."

Rory's tongue poked out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated on her task. Luke grinned, remembering his dad's usual observation during their projects that the tongue did most of the work.

"OK, now you're going to measure 20 inches down. Then we're going to do something tricky."

"What?"

"Just get the first part done, then I'll explain it to you." He nodded in approval once she got it marked off. "This piece will become the sides of the birdhouse, and since we want the roof to slant, the sides need to slant, too. Now I want you to mark where 10 inches is on this one edge." He watched her find the halfway spot in the 20 inches she'd just calculated. "Now, on this opposite edge of the board, measure down 8 inches." She measured, made a light mark, measured again, and then made the mark darker. "Now, draw your line between those two marks," he told her.

"Like that?" She leaned back and regarded the angled line.

"Exactly like that. See how that gives us two pieces, both of them slanted the same way?"

Rory looked skeptical but soon saw what he was trying to tell her. "Huh, that worked!" she marveled. She wrote 'side' on both of the angled pieces.

"This isn't my first birdhouse," Luke informed her dryly. "And we're down to the last piece. Measure off 4 inches. That's going to be the floor."

"What do we do with this?" Rory put her hand on the board still remaining after she made the last measurement.

"We don't need that piece. We'll put it into the scrap pile. It'll get used for something else someday."

"Now what?"

"Now we get set up to do our cutting." Luke pulled two sawhorses out from under a table and put them in the middle of the space. He took the long board and laid it over the sawhorses. "First we need to do some drilling, though."

"Why?"

"Well, think about the front of the birdhouse. How are the birds going to get in?"

Rory giggled. "They need a front door."

"They sure do." Luke had the drill out of the case and plugged in by then. He showed Rory a drill bit with a rectangular section on it, followed by a pointy end. "We're going to use this one to make the hole."

She cautiously touched it. "How is that going to make a circle?"

"You'll see," he promised, making sure the bit was securely locked into place. He handed her some safety goggles and put some on himself. "Here, put these on. Don't want to take you home to your mom missing an eye later on."

"Yeah, she'd probably frown on that." Rory eagerly put the goggles on. "Do I look silly?"

"Of course you do. Everybody does." He made a funny face at her, to prove his point.

She looked at him thoughtfully. "Actually, you don't look much different than you did before."

"Gee, thanks for the honesty," he said, pretending to be hurt, and was happy to hear her laugh again. "OK, you ready for this?" He motioned for her to come and stand in front of him.

"I'm going to do it?" She sounded nervous, but took her place and let him position her hands on the drill.

"I've made an 'x' where we want the door to be," Luke told her. "We're going to put the pointy end of the bit right on the 'x,' and then we're going to press this switch…"

Rory gasped as the drill roared, the bit rotated madly, and sawdust flew. At first Luke was the one holding it steady, but she soon took over as she began to understand the process. She shrieked when the bit broke through the board.

"We did it!" she yelled, examining the new round hole in the previously solid piece of wood. "I can't believe that worked."

"Every time." Luke grinned at her. "Next we need to saw the pieces apart. I'm going to do that step, if it's all right with you?"

"OK," she immediately agreed.

Luke picked up a handsaw from the pegboard and maneuvered the board so that the front piece was hanging over the side of the sawhorse. "Tell you what, you help by holding up the end of the board while I saw, OK?"

"Yeah, I can do that." She took her place and watched while Luke cut through the board, following the line she'd marked. "Wow, you're strong," she commented, once the first piece was separated from the board. "You cut through that like it was nothing."

He shrugged off her admiration. "The trick is keeping the saw sharp. Ready to hold it steady for me again?"

"Sure!" She put the front piece down on the workbench for safe keeping and then took up her helper spot again.

When all of the pieces had been cut apart, Luke moved over to the workbench. He pulled out some sandpaper. "Here, while I look for the nails and other things we need, you can use the sandpaper on the edges and to smooth down the opening. Don't want the birds getting splinters." He showed Rory how to use the sandpaper and she willingly took over the task.

"Is this good enough?" she asked after a couple of minutes.

"Looks fine to me," Luke agreed, running his thumb over one of the edges. "Ready to put it all together?"

"Are you kidding? Yes!"

Luke picked out the two side pieces and sat them up on the work surface, their long edges facing up. He laid the front on top of the side pieces, making sure everything fit flush together. "Now we're going to anchor the front to the sides with wood screws. We're using screws so that in the fall we can take it apart and clean it out, after the birds are done using it for the season. But before we do that, we're going to drill a tiny little hole, called a pilot hole, where we want each screw to go."

"Why?"

Luke smiled, he'd suspected that was going to be her next question. "Because we don't want the wood to split, and drilling the pilot hole first makes sure that won't happen." He showed her the long, skinny drill bit, and she watched closely as he took off the spade bit and put on the thin one instead. He marked each spot where they were going to drill, and once again held her hands in place while she made each hole.

"Now it's time to put it all together." He changed out the drill head so they could use it as a power screwdriver.

"That was fun," Rory said, her face shining, once she had anchored all four screws into the sides. "Is that how we'll do the back, too?"

"We'll use nails everywhere else. We won't need to remove any of the other pieces the way we will the front."

They worked steadily, Luke showing his eager pupil how to fit the remaining pieces together. Rory drilled the rest of the pilot holes, but he took over the job of actually hammering in the finishing nails. At last the roof was attached and the birdhouse also had a floor.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever done," Rory said in a reverential tone, staring at the finished product.

"I'm glad you think so," Luke said, starting to pick up the mess they'd made. "My dad loved to go out to the shop when he had time and make something useful. Guess he passed that craving on to me, too."

Rory just stood in front of the workbench and gazed proudly at the birdhouse for a few more minutes.

"Hey, could I decorate it? Paint it, maybe?"

"Sure, if we can find some paint." He went over to a metal shelving unit and looked over the cans stored there. "How do you feel about blue?"

"Blue's good."

He opened up the lid with a flat-nosed screwdriver and found a skinny scrap of wood to use as a paint stirrer. He looked on the pegboard, selecting a narrow paintbrush meant for trim work.

"Here," he said, bring the supplies over to her. "Grab one of those old newspapers stacked over there and spread it over the top of the workbench first. And take a rag and wipe off the birdhouse. You don't want to try and paint over sawdust."

It wasn't long before Rory had the top and the two sides painted a robin's egg blue. On the front she carefully began to paint a cascading string of flowers, each with five round petals and a center of solid blue.

"My mom bought us some tools once," she commented after a while, working diligently on her design.

"What for?" Luke wondered, continuing to straighten up the shop.

"Because we live in a house now. Can't call Raphael to come and do maintenance work anymore."

Luke knew Raphael had done repairs at the Independence Inn for years. "Your house needed work?"

Rory gave a delicate little snort. "_Needs_ work, more like."

"Like what?"

"Oh…" She paused for a moment, thinking, and also taking a moment to regard her artwork. "For one thing, our back porch is all messed up. When you walk across it, you can feel some of the boards do this." Her hand undulated up and down. "And then there's one board that's all crazy, it's sticking way up on one end. Mom was afraid one of us was going to trip over it and kill ourselves, so she bought a hammer and some nails."

Luke grinned. "Did she get it fixed?"

"Nope." Rory went back to painting. "The nails kept going in all crooked, and Mom got mad, and then she hit it really hard, but instead of the board she hit her thumb instead."

"Ouch."

"Yeah." Rory's shoulders hunched over, concentrating on her work. "She tried to pretend it didn't hurt, but I saw her crying. And then later, her thumbnail got all black and gross."

Luke swallowed hard. He had no idea why the idea of Lorelai Gilmore being hurt was upsetting him the way it was. He cleared his throat. "Is it still sticking up, or did your mom come up with a different solution?"

"She borrowed one of those orange traffic cones from work and put it on the bad board. She said the thing was a hazard and deserved to be ostracized."

Luke shook his head. Another one of those half-formed ideas was trying to land in his brain, but he wasn't ready to look at it too closely yet. He walked behind Rory and watched her apply paint to the back of the birdhouse.

"A unicorn," he said, finally making out the figure she was working on.

"Yeah, but it's not very good."

"Good enough that I could tell what it was," he protested. "Besides, it's not like you've got the right brush to work with." He pointed at what she'd painted on the lower right corner. "JTT? What's that?"

Her cheeks turned a rosy pink. "Jonathan Taylor Thomas," she muttered.

"A boy at school?" Luke sighed, hating to think that she was already into the boyfriend/girlfriend thing.

"No!" she laughed. "He's on TV."

"Ah." He paused, feeling relieved. "What show?"

"_Home Improvement."_ She went back to dabbing paint into the corners. "To tell you the truth, I don't care all that much about him, but all of the other girls at school like him, so…you know. It's easier to pretend I do too."

"He's cute, I take it?"

"Yeah. He's also the brainy one. He gets all of the funny lines to say." She put down her brush and folded her arms across her chest, still contemplating the birdhouse. "I hear he's pretty short, though, so I'd probably _tower _over him if we'd ever really meet."

Luke recalled her earlier concern about being taller than her classmates, and thought of something else that might reassure her. "Hey, Rory, remember that your mom's tall. Think about how pretty she looks."

Rory didn't breathe for a little bit. Then, "You think my mom's pretty?" she asked in clipped, tight voice.

Too late Luke remembered what she'd told him on Mother's Day, about guys trying to use her to get to her mom. "She_ is_ pretty, Rory. That's just a fact of life. I don't mean anything else by saying it, just stating a fact. Another fact is that you look just like your mom, and you're probably going to grow up to be tall and pretty, just like she is."

She didn't say anything else, just thought that over. Finally she gave him a small smile.

"Could be worse, right?" he teased her, happy when she nodded in agreement, still smiling. "Come on, let's get the paint cleaned up and take you over to the Inn."

Pretty quickly they had the shop back in order and were in the truck, Rory gingerly holding the birdhouse with the still-tacky paint. They both turned their heads to look at the farmhouse porch as they bounced by, but neither Ed nor Clinton were in sight.

On the way to the Inn, Rory kept shifting the birdhouse from side-to-side in her hands, admiring it.

"You did a good job," Luke praised her.

She smiled over at him. "Thanks for showing me how to make this. I had a really good time."

"Good. I did too."

"Really?"

"What? You think I lie to gullible kids like you?"

She grinned. "Maybe."

"Nah, I don't lie. Well, only to Taylor," he amended, and was rewarded with a chuckle from Rory. "It was fun, Rory. I'm sorry things didn't work out with your dad, but I'm glad we had fun together."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Listen, when you decide where you want to put the birdhouse at your place, let me know." That previous half-formed idea was becoming much clearer. Annoyingly so. "I'll come over and nail it up for you."

"That would be great!" She beamed over at him. "Thanks, Luke."

"You're welcome." He nodded at her, and realized he was smiling again. He couldn't remember the last time when he'd smiled so much in a single day.

* * *

They pulled into a parking spot right in front of the Inn, the one designated for visitors just checking in. Luke came around and opened the door for Rory, then gave her a hand to help her jump down, since she was still carefully holding on to the birdhouse. She didn't let go of his hand when she reached the ground, but instead tugged on him, pulling him along the neat sidewalk leading up to the welcoming wrap-around porch that skirted the front of the building.

Feeling her girlish fingers closing around his made him think of another time, another era, when he'd been entrusted with leading his little sister up this same path.

Lorelai must have been watching for them, because she burst through the front door before they even reached the porch steps. "Rory! My darling daughter! You've returned!" she cried out dramatically, leaping over the last step and dashing up to them with outstretched arms. "You've been away for so long I hardly recognize you!"

"Hi to you, too, Mom," Rory said, rolling her eyes at her mother's antics. Then she proudly held up the birdhouse. "Look!"

Lorelai inclined her head, studying it. "That's really nice. Where'd you get it?"

Rory threw back her shoulders and held her head high. "I made it," she justifiably bragged.

"You did not!" Lorelai looked from Rory, to the birdhouse, to Luke. "You didn't." She looked less certain. "Did you?" She looked to Luke for confirmation. "Did she?"

"I did!" Rory insisted, while Luke nodded.

Lorelai looked flabbergasted and stared at the little house with more respect. "That can't be possible," she said faintly.

"Luke's a good teacher. He told me exactly what to do. He did the actual sawing part, but I did everything else."

Happiness and sadness seemed to fighting for control over Lorelai's face. "Rory, that's…that's amazing, Kid. Really." She glanced over at Luke, her expressive face registering what looked like guilt. "I had no idea she could do something like that."

"She's a great student," Luke commented, smiling over at a beaming Rory. "She followed every instruction to the letter."

"Is Mia here?" Rory asked.

"No, she went home already. But Sookie's still in the kitchen."

"I'm going to go show her too!" Rory started to run off, but then abruptly came back. She put her free arm partially around Luke's waist, giving him a sincere, if awkward, hug. "Thanks, Luke."

Caught off guard, he just as awkwardly gave her a hug back around the top of her head. "You're welcome, Rory."

He and Lorelai both watched her run up the steps and into the Inn.

"Wow, she's happy," Lorelai observed in a feeble voice. She turned and looked directly at Luke. "I mean, really happy."

"Yeah, I think so," he agreed, shrugging.

"No, I mean, she's _happy_." Lorelai shook her head. "She does this thing sometimes, where she pretends to be happy for my benefit, so that I don't catch on that something is really bothering her. But this isn't that. This is no act. You, my friend, have made my little girl very happy on a day when I thought she had her heart stomped into the ground, and for that, I thank you very much."

"It was my pleasure," Luke mumbled, wishing she'd just drop it. He took a step back towards the truck, wanting to be gone now that he'd successfully completed _Mission: Abandoned Daughter_.

But Lorelai took a step closer to him, quashing his effort to leave. "I finished your vetting process, by the way. Both Sookie and Mia gave you two thumbs up. Turns out they are both huge fans of the diner guy."

"Good to know." This time Luke took two steps closer to the truck, but once again Lorelai followed right behind.

"They both say you are an amazing guy, and I have to say, so far I heartily concur."

"It was no big deal." He looked longingly at his truck, still so far from him.

"No, I'm pretty sure it was." Lorelai took a step away from him this time, smiling softly. "But I get that you're kind of a shy guy, so I'm not going to press the issue. Just know that I'm incredibly grateful to you. Thanks, Luke. Thank you so much for what you did for my kid today." She turned, preparing to go away.

It surprised Luke to see his own hand reach out and gently snag Lorelai's upper arm, lightly pulling until she turned around and faced him again, a teasing smile gracing her mouth.

"Well, what do you know? You _do_ know my name," he observed sardonically.

Her sapphire eyes sparkled at him. "Today I know your name."

Rory had already informed him of that._ "She just wants to see what you'll do to make her stop," _she'd told him. And for that matter, he was a little curious about that himself…What _would_ he be willing to do to make her stop?

"Anything we can do to make sure you remember it tomorrow, too?" Geez, what was wrong with him, touching her arm the way he was and that weird tone in his voice – was that – was he _flirting_? But instead of dropping her arm, instead of saying goodbye and walking away, he watched her eyes sparkle. He made note of the enticing curve of her mouth.

"It just depends on the type of mood I'm in tomorrow," she advised him. Her blue eyes, currently just a shade darker than Rory's, looked deeply into his. _She_ had no problem with flirting.

_Say goodbye. Go get in the truck. Say goodbye. Go get in the truck. Say – _

Lorelai reached up and put a soft hand on his chin, pushing her thumb into the small triangle of whiskers he stubbornly left intact under his lower lip. She stepped closer, rose up on her tiptoes, and lightly kissed his cheek. "Thanks," she whispered, next to his ear.

She landed back down on the soles of her shoes. "You turned what should have been a bad day into a good one. You're a miracle worker." She smiled and nodded vigorously before turning and heading back towards the porch.

Luke walked numbly to his truck. He couldn't resist a look over at the Inn before he climbed inside.

She was standing on the top step, watching him. "Bye Duke!" she yelled out, waving madly. Then she laughed and strolled inside.

Shaking his head and feeling more confused than ever, Luke got into the truck and headed home.

* * *

He stood in the street, looking in through the big front windows. Inside was his diner. Thankfully he noted that most of the tables were filled. He watched as his staff bustled around. It was a bizarre feeling, standing apart and observing the action, instead of being inside and being a part of it. Like an out-of-body experience or something. But then, it had been a whole day of strangeness.

Finally he shook off his uncharacteristic mood and opened the door. Jolene nailed him before he even reached the counter.

"There you are! It's about time! Larry's no match for the evening grill duties, you _know_ that, Luke."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be back there in a minute," he promised.

She gave a huff at his offhand attitude, grabbed up a tray of sandwiches and fries, and left for the floor.

Luke came around the counter and walked over to a spot by the coffeemakers. A cracked ceramic canister, once meant for sugar, was sitting there. Over the years it had become the repository of spare bolts and Canadian coins, pens that needed refills and rubber bands. A home for all of the odds and ends that collected behind the counter in a diner.

He flipped the latch and pulled open the lid, his fingers feeling for what he knew was there somewhere. He found it fairly quickly and pulled it out, rubbing the thin piece of newsprint between his fingers. It didn't feel like much. Just a horoscope, torn out of a newspaper. Had some words inked around the edge of it. Hardly seemed like something worth keeping.

Luke reached for his wallet. The small scrap of paper got tucked inside, hiding between his insurance card and a picture of his sister holding a dark-haired baby.

"Hey, Larry, I'm back," he called out, and stepped into the kitchen.

* * *

_Up next: July brings fireworks, fairy wings, and a proposition..._

* * *

**A special note to anyone mourning the demise of TWoP:** There is a new site called**_ Lumpy Potatoes_** (lumpypotatoes period com) just waiting on you to come on over and say howdy. It's a perfect place for all of us who still love Gilmore Girls. If you want to discuss fanfic, get your questions answered about the show, or just reminisce, this is the place! See you there!


	3. Fireworks by Day

**Author's Notes for July:** Hi everyone! July is vacation month for a great many people, as it is for me, too! Because of getting ready for a trip, I wasn't able to complete the entire story I had planned for July, so I've broken it up into two pieces. This first chapter deals with Luke and Lorelai and Rory during the daylight hours of July 4th, and later in the month there will be another chapter exploring the nighttime and the fireworks, and delving a little bit into another happening for our favorite Stars Hollow residents. Hope you don't mind that you're getting two chapters instead of one this month! Happy 4th of July - and a belated happy Canada Day to all of my pals up North! (And a big smoochy hug goes to **Eledgy**, for her help in nailing the titles for these chapters!)

* * *

"Look, Rory, there's my very own Anne Bancroft!"

Of course Luke heard the voice that was right behind him. It would be hard to miss that voice: insistent, annoying, and ending in a high-pitched squeal. But he ignored it for as long as he could while painstakingly filling up the coffee mugs on the table before him. Finally, knowing he could no longer put it off, he turned around.

Two beaming faces greeted him, both with straight dark hair falling to their shoulders, both with shining blue eyes watching him carefully.

"You're comparing me to Mrs. Robinson?" Luke asked, not looking at either of them as he filled up Lorelai's perpetually empty mug.

"Hmm, I don't know. Show me your leg," Lorelai ordered, peeking under the table at his feet. "You know, do that angle-y thing."

"Sorry. Didn't shave today. Wouldn't dare to roll up my pants leg." He started to walk away.

"Luke, wait! Anne Bancroft. Don't you get it?"

"Nope," he said, as if he didn't care, but he didn't move any farther away, either.

"Anne Bancroft," Lorelai repeated with a touch of impatience. "Patty Duke? You know, the movie about Helen Keller? _The Miracle Worker?"_ She waited for Luke to acknowledge her reference, while Rory's attentive gaze bounced back and forth between the two of them.

Luke forced himself to stay still, to keep his face unreadable. In the few weeks since Father's Day he'd learned that playing dumb to her pop culture quizzes drove her crazy. And, he'd further learned, driving her crazy was sort of fun. He barely shrugged his shoulders at her, trying to look slightly puzzled.

"Luke!" she chastised him. "_The Miracle Worker_! And, come on, what are you to me? My very own Stars Hollow miracle worker, right? Man, are you a lot of work," she complained, shaking her head when he still made no response.

He was feeling pretty stoked about how the whole exchange had played out until Lorelai tilted her head at him and did that pouty thing with her mouth, causing his heart to momentarily thud to a stop.

Apparently she'd learned something about bedeviling him in the preceding weeks, too.

"Speaking of work," he said, keeping his eyes firmly on Rory, "have you given any thought about where you'd like to put up your birdhouse?"

"Yeah," Rory said happily, glancing at her mom. "There's a post behind the garage that might work. There are a couple of bushes back there, so the birdies would have a little bit of natural habitat close by, too."

"Sounds good. Do you want me to come over and nail it up?"

"Yes!" Rory's response was immediate.

"Would the 4th of July be OK? I'll close up here after lunch, so I could come on over afterwards."

"Mom?" Rory looked eagerly over at Lorelai for approval.

"Well, I'm at the Inn for part of the day, but Rory's going to stay right next door, so it should be OK."

"Where do you live?" Luke frowned, not able to remember if he'd been told or not.

"We're the blue house on Maple," Rory quickly informed him. "We're exactly five minutes away from the diner if we walk."

"Or four-and-a-half minutes away if the Rosen's dog chases us," Lorelai added.

"You're down at the end of the street, right?"

"We're next to the Dell's house. You know, the one with the gnome infestation?" Lorelai explained.

"Babette?" Luke asked with a grimace. Babette wasn't as suggestive as Miss Patty, but she was certainly louder, which made them pretty much equal on his people-to-avoid scorecard.

"Right, Babette and Morey. They've been so good to us since we moved in, and for some reason they really seem to like my little Quasimodo here." Lorelai tried to pinch Rory's cheek, but the girl batted away her hand, so she sat back then and smiled at Luke instead. "Babette takes offense if she doesn't get to watch Rory a couple of times a week."

"Passed the vetting process, did she?"

Lorelai laughed. "With flying colors."

Luke nodded, seeing no way to avoid interaction with Lorelai's neighbor. "OK, well, I'll be over on the 4th, then."

"It's a date!" Rory declared, enthusiastically smacking her hands down on the table. There was an awkward pause, and then a moment later Luke began to walk away.

As Luke moved towards the kitchen, he noted with some interest that talkative Lorelai had said nothing to offset the uneasy silence brought on by Rory's innocent choice of words.

* * *

Luke pulled up in front of the blue house on Maple on Monday afternoon. After a moment of doubt, he went ahead and parked in the driveway. He had a lot of supplies in the bed of the truck and he didn't especially want to haul them farther than he had to.

Feeling like he was heading into battle, he dragged his feet over to the house next door. On the way to the Dell's front door, he noticed a shin-high ceramic statue poking out of a geranium bush by the sidewalk. Then he saw another red pointed cap by the porch step, and yet another peeking around the edge of the house. He finally understood what Lorelai had meant by 'gnome infestation.' Grinning belatedly at her comment, he knocked on the door.

"Well, hiya, handsome," Babette Dell gushed, throwing open the door. Rory squeezed out past her, smiling up at him.

"Hi, Babette," he said, but he directed his own smile at Rory. "Oh, hi Morey," he added, seeing Babette's quiet husband standing back in the shadows.

"Luke," Morey replied calmly.

"Happy 4th of July!" Rory said in greeting. "Is the diner really closed?"

"It's really closed," he confirmed.

"I didn't think the diner ever closed," she speculated.

Luke chuckled while Babette cackled. "I close it every night," he reminded Rory.

"I know that," she said, her cheeks flushing. "But it seems like it's always open during the day. I didn't know you ever shut it down during the day."

"Sometimes on a holiday, or if the town's having a celebration that pulls away too many customers, I do. It doesn't seem very cost-effective to stay open then."

"Well, whatever the reason, we're happy to see you over here with us," Babette told him warmly. "It's good to see you getting away from the diner for once. Out exploring what else the town might have to offer." She all but winked.

"Rory, why don't you show me the post for the birdhouse?" Luke requested, steadfastly ignoring Babette.

"Sure, follow me." Rory immediately darted out of the doorway, heading for the porch steps.

Luke started to say goodbye to Babette, but to his surprise she started across the porch too. "I thought I'd supervise," she commented. "Seeing as how Lorelai's not here and all."

Luke's heart sank. But his mother had drilled good manners into him as a boy. "Of course," he mumbled, head down as he trudged across the yards.

Petite Babette had to hustle to keep up with his long strides, but that didn't keep her talking at a minimum. She kept up a steady dialogue, interspersed with panting for breath.

"You know that Lorelai works at the Independence, right? Mia gushes on and on about that girl, and I can't blame her. Hard worker, and always such a good mother. Rory's an angel, an absolute angel, and you know who's responsible for that? Lorelai, that's who. And what a looker that gal is, too. Good lord, if I'd have looked like her when I was that age, I wouldn't have sat home one night outta the week. You know what I'm sayin'? I mean, have you looked at that girl's legs?"

Luke wasn't sure how he was expected to respond to that, or if Babette even expected him to say anything. Maybe it was more like Lorelai's conversations, the words pouring out sometimes just so she could hear herself talk. "Is that it?" he said instead to Rory, as they came within sight of the garage, having navigated through the Gilmore's backyard.

"Yeah. Will this work?" Rory pointed to the post next to her, which was just a tad taller than she was.

Luke put his hands around the post and gave it a good shake. "Seems sturdy enough." He spanned his fingers across the top, judging whether or not it was big enough to hold the birdhouse. "It should work," he decided. "Where's the birdhouse?"

"Oops! Still in the house!" Rory took off to retrieve it.

Luke noticed that she pulled open the unlocked door into her house. True, it was the back door, and this _was_ sleepy Stars Hollow, but even so…He resolved to say something to Lorelai about it.

"This is sure nice of you, Luke, to take on doing something like this for Rory. Poor kid. That dad of hers sure doesn't seem to be worth much."

That got his interest. "You know him?"

"Nah. He's never been around. That's the problem, ain't it?"

Luke shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's better that he's not around, since the guy doesn't seem to be too reliable."

"She does this all on her own, ya know." Babette's voice dropped down a notch, turning serious. "Raisin' Rory, the house, working all hours. Nobody's helping her, not the fancy parents, not the dad. Just her. She's a feisty one, though. She's determined to make it all work."

Luke just nodded, afraid that if he said anything at all, he would accidentally give Babette some sort of ammunition to add to her gossip cache.

"I know Mia watches over 'em, and Morey and I have been trying, since they moved in here. And now, if you'd take an interest in them, too…" Babette trailed off. "It'd sure be nice if Lorelai had a big strong hunk o'man that she could depend on."

"Got it!" Rory slammed the back door and came running to the garage.

"You should think about it, Luke," Babette said hurriedly, trying to get in one last piece of advice before Rory got too near. "You gotta admit, maybe it's time to stop lookin' backwards and see what pretty thing's available right in the here and now, you know?"

Rory ran up to them panting, holding out the birdhouse. "Here, Luke. What do we do first?"

Glad for the interruption, Luke held the birdhouse up on top of the post. "What do you think? Look OK to you?"

"Perfect!" Rory said in approval, sort of hopping around in excitement. Suddenly she stopped, looking at Babette. "Oh, look out, Babette! There's some sort of big bug flying around your head!"

"What? Where?" Babette was now the one to hop around, frantically waving her hands around her bobbing blonde curls. "Is it a bumblebee?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Rory waved her arms at Babette too, trying to be helpful. "You know, I read something about how bugs are attracted to hairspray. Are you wearing hairspray?"

"'Course I am! Can't keep this hairstyle up without –" She stopped and began frantically dashing her hands about her head again. "There! I heard it! Oh, get away!" She ducked and covered. "Is it gone?"

"Yeah, I think so," Rory nodded.

Babette held her hands protectively over the top of her head. "I think maybe I'd better go on back to the house. That is, if you two think you can get along without me."

"We'll be fine," Rory promised. "You go in. Besides, wasn't Morey getting ready to play the piano for you?"

"Yeah, he was." Babette got a dreamy look on her face. "Well, if you're sure…" She began to back away. "Rory, you come in if you get too hot. Luke, sugar, always a treat to see you in our neck of the woods. You'll think on what I said, right?"

"Nice to see you, too, Babette," Luke said blandly. When she had disappeared back into her house, he turned to gaze sternly at Rory. "Did you just trick her into leaving?"

Rory looked at him with big, innocent eyes. "Me?"

"There was no bee," he said with certainty.

"Huh, I thought for sure there was."

"Rory –"

"She was trying to convince you that Mom's a catch, wasn't she?"

"Well, uh…"

Rory sighed. "She and Miss Patty – Do you know Miss Patty?"

Luke sighed too. "I sure do."

"Well, they seem to think that it's their responsibility to find Mom a boyfriend. They're always trying to fix her up with someone. I figured it was only a matter of time before they finally got to you."

Luke wasn't sure how he felt about being in the 'finally' category. "They've always fancied themselves as matchmakers. That's nothing new."

Rory looked uncomfortable. "Just ignore whatever she said, OK?"

"No problem. I've ignored everything they've said for at least 15 years. No reason why today should be any different."

"Good. I don't want them to make this weird with us."

"I don't either," Luke agreed, smiling at her scowling seriousness. "You ready to help me with this chore?"

Rory nodded vigorously.

"OK then, here." Luke handed her a screwdriver he'd stashed in his jeans pocket. "Remember how we put the front on with the wood screws? Go ahead and take them out. Be careful not to lose the screws in the grass."

"OK." Rory sat down cross-legged on the ground, diligently fitting the flat blade of the screwdriver into the top of one of the screws.

Luke left her hard at work and walked to the truck to get his toolbox out of the back. When he returned a short time later, she'd already made good progress.

"Why I am taking this apart?" she asked him.

"That way we can reach the bottom of the birdhouse and nail it to the top of the post," he explained.

Rory stopped work for a moment, concentrating on what he'd said. She looked at the birdhouse, then the post. Her face lit up. "Oh, yeah, I get it! I see how that will work!"

"Smart girl," he praised her.

When Rory finished the deconstruction, he took the birdhouse from her. "In spite of your recent growth spurt, I still think you're a little short to do this part. Why don't you hold the nails for me?"

Luke placed the birdhouse square on the post and quickly put a couple of nails through the bottom of it, firmly anchoring it down. "Give me the front piece now, and the screwdriver, and I'll put it back together."

Rory watched him, assisting by handing him whatever he needed.

"That looks really nice there," she said with satisfaction, viewing the almost-completed project.

"Yeah, it does. You picked out a good spot." He was slowly replacing the last screw. "So, about your mom and Miss Patty and Babette…Does she ever go out with these guys they pick out for her?"

"No, she says that so far she's managed to successfully dodge that bullet."

"Are the guys that terrible?"

"Don't know, it's never gotten that far." Rory sat back down on the grass and started plucking clover flowers out of a clump by her side. "Mom says she's got enough on her plate with me and the house and the Inn, she doesn't need to have a guy to try and keep happy, too."

"Not interested in dating, huh?"

"Not right now, I don't think. And…" Rory looked up at him, obviously trying to decide whether or not to say more. "Even though Mom mocks the chick-flick movies relentlessly, I still think she's a romantic at heart. I think she secretly believes that someday the right guy is just going to show up at our door."

Luke snorted. "Yeah, good luck with that."

"I guess that's not how real life works," Rory agreed, albeit sadly.

Hands on his hips, Luke looked around the backyard, having no desire to discuss romance any further. "So, Rory, I guess I sort of need to ask a favor of you."

Rory instantly perked up. "What?"

"I need you to show me your back porch."

She looked perplexed. "Well, it's right there," she said, pointing.

"I mean, show me what's wrong with it."

"Why?"

"Because – Can you just show me?"

"Ye-e-a-ah," she said slowly, getting to her feet and leading the way.

Luke chuckled as he followed her up the steps and got his first sight of the structure. "You weren't kidding. She really did put a traffic cone over the bad spot." He picked up the orange plastic cone, studying the board underneath it. He walked back and forth across the whole area, putting his weight on some other suspicious boards, frowning as he felt them give underneath him.

"I wouldn't make stuff up." Rory sounded offended, even though she had just lied to Babette about the non-existent bumblebee.

"No, I know that." Luke said distractedly. He wanted to soothe her, but he was more interested in the rotting boards under his feet.

"Is it bad?" Rory asked, watching him.

"Yeah, worse than I thought it might be. I don't think I have enough lumber with me to replace them all." He was already lost in the to-do list in his head, hardly taking note of Rory standing two feet away from him.

"What are you talking about?" she asked sharply, bringing him back to the present.

"I thought I'd fix this for you, but I'm not sure I've got enough new boards in the truck. I can make a good start on it, though."

"Wait. Did you talk to Mom about this?"

"What? No." Luke smiled reassuringly at Rory. "I thought we'd surprise her."

Rory was shaking her head at him. "She won't like that. Mom's real funny about accepting help sometimes. Especially with the house."

"Well, you guys can't keep on living here with it like this." Luke pointed at the worst board, with the warped end pointing up a good three inches into the air. "That's dangerous, and putting an orange cone over it is not a long-term solution." He tromped over and stomped on another weak point, showing Rory how much give was in the board. "See that? It's not strong enough to even hold up a little girl like you. I can't go away and just leave it like that. How can I sleep at night, knowing how bad this is? Come on, you don't want me to lay awake and worry about you guys, do you?"

"No-o-o…" Rory looked conflicted. "But Mom's not going to like this, Luke."

"Leave your mom to me," Luke said confidently. "We'll have this done before she gets home. I bet she'll be so thrilled when she sees it she won't even care that she didn't know about it beforehand."

Rory gave him one of those looks that she did sometimes, the ones that made him think she was ever so much smarter than he was.

"It's your funeral," she told him succinctly, holding out her hands in surrender. "But I still think she's going to be mad," she predicted, walking over to the orange cone. "And I'm going to miss Coney," she added in a grumble, patting the cone's pointed top. "He's become like a member of the family."

Luke sighed and shook his head. "Will you help me get the supplies out of the truck?"

"Only if you tell Mom that none of this was my idea."

"Fine, you can put all the blame on me," Luke muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Then I'll help," Rory agreed, jumping down the steps ahead of him.

With Rory's extra two hands, he soon had the sawhorses set up on the ground by the steps, his toolbox open on the porch, and an armload of lumber leaning against the house.

"Why did that one do that?" Rory asked, pointing at the curled up board.

Luke got the claw-end of the hammer underneath the board and pried it up. "I think whoever made this porch used the wrong sort of boards." He examined the damaged plank. "There's special wood, pressure-treated wood, that you're supposed to use for outdoors. It's treated with a chemical, so it will hold up under rain and snow for a lot of years. I'm pretty sure this isn't pressure treated, so it was just a matter of time before it went bad."

"Is the whole porch bad?" Rory sounded panicked.

"Hey, it's OK." Luke had already learned how easily Rory got worried. "Eventually this whole porch might need to be replaced, but not right now. Today we're going to get rid of the weakest boards, but the rest are still doing their jobs. Once I get all of these new ones in, maybe we'll talk to your mom about putting some sort of a protective sealer coat on, or painting the whole thing. That would help it to stand up to the weather longer. Don't worry, we'll take care of it, OK?"

"OK," Rory said with complete trust, watching his eyes with her serious ones, and making Luke feel responsible for a whole lot more than merely fixing a back porch.

For the next 30 minutes they worked, Rory mostly watching while Luke pried and measured, cut and nailed. She helped when she could, handing him nails or the tape measure, but this project wasn't as hands-on for her as the birdhouse had been.

"Hey, Luke, would it be all right if I went back to Babette's?" she asked, after fidgeting for a spell.

"Sure, that's fine," Luke told her. "It's pretty hot out here, huh?"

"Yeah, and I've got this story I'm reading. _The Hobbit?_ Did you ever read it?"

"Bilbo Baggins? Sure, I've read it."

"Don't tell me how it ends!"

"I wouldn't do that," Luke grinned at her.

"It's really good. They've just got to the elves' kingdom, and it sounds so pretty. I want to see how much I can read before tonight."

"What's tonight?" Luke was busy measuring again.

"Lu-u-uke! Fireworks!"

"Oh, right," he nodded.

"Hey, are you going?"

"Me? Nah."

Rory sucked in a sharp little breath. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry. Is it a family thing again?"

"Family thing?" Luke looked up from his calculations. "What do you mean?"

"You know. Like Father's Day. Is it something that makes you sad because you used to go with your dad?"

"No, nothing like that." Luke smiled kindly at her. "I just don't like crowds much."

"Don't you want to see the fireworks?"

"If I do, I'll step outside and look up when I hear the booms."

"That's not the same," Rory insisted.

"It is to me," he said firmly.

She sighed, shaking her head at the folly of grown-ups, and he smiled at her again.

"Go on in. Go read more about Bilbo," he encouraged her.

"I'll check back later," she promised, clattering down the steps.

After Rory left, Luke noticed the heat more. Without the distraction of her questions, the sun burned against his neck. Sweat dripped down his face, and gnats buzzed around his ears. He took off his hat, and then yanked off his t-shirt. He hung the shirt over the porch railing to dry out, and when he put his hat back on, he put it on the way it was supposed to go, with the bill over his forehead, shading his eyes. Then, giving himself a mental shake, he got back to work, trying to ignore the scorching heat.

Soon he got into a sort of a groove, falling into the rhythm of prying, measuring, cutting, fitting, nailing. He hated leaving so many weak boards in place, but he had to concentrate on only the worst of the worst for right now. He'd go back to the lumberyard and get more boards to complete the project at a later date. Today he'd do just enough to get by.

Finally he was down to only one replacement board left, and many potential candidates for where to place it. He thought about where the girls probably stepped the most, and that made his decision. He pried up a board right in front of the back door. It was split and half-rotted, and they surely stepped right on it every time they came outside.

He was down at the sawhorses, cutting the replacement board to fit the spot, when he heard Rory calling from inside the house. His head jerked up, confused about how she could have gotten inside without him knowing it. Then he took off running, jumping up the steps, trying to stop her before she could open the door and step into the hole where the missing plank should be.

"Rory, don't come out!" he yelled, putting his hands out at where he estimated her shoulders would be. The door began to open, and he lunged.

But instead of Rory's shoulders, his hands were resting on a spot just above Lorelai's waist. He was pretty sure that the shocked look on her face was mirroring his own.

"You're not Rory," he said stupidly.

"Neither are you," she pointed out with a slight gasp.

They stared at each other for a moment before he thought to drop his hands. He took a step back.

"Watch out," he warned her, pointing to the gap in the porch floor.

She looked down at the hole, looked at him, and then looked completely around the whole backyard, her hands on her hips. She finally spoke. "You know, you should probably pinch me."

"I'm sorry, what?" Luke shook his head, trying to understand what she meant.

"Pinch me," she repeated. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming. I come home to _my _own house, open _my_ door, and I find a half-naked stud doing unrequested home repairs on _my_ back porch." She smiled thinly at him. "Gotta be a dream, right?"

Suddenly aware of his bare chest, Luke dove for his shirt, but Lorelai was closer.

"Uh-uh, I think I'll hold on to this for right now," she declared, crossing her arms over the t-shirt, hugging it to her securely.

Luke crossed his arms, too, scowling down at the wooden floor.

She looked around again, taking in his work station, the sawdust, the open toolbox sitting at his feet. "Luke, what's going on?"

"Rory mentioned that you had some issues with your back porch. I thought I'd see what I could do," he muttered.

She paused again. "And you didn't think that maybe you should talk to me about it first?"

He began to get an inkling that he should have listened to Rory's misgivings. "I thought it would be nice to surprise you."

"Oh, you surprised me, all right." She saluted him with his own shirt.

"It's not that big a deal," he said sullenly.

"There you're wrong. It is a big deal." She carefully stepped over the open spot in her high heels, crossed the porch, and leaned against the far railing. "You confuse me, Diner Guy."

Luke sighed, realizing that they _were_ going to have this conversation. He crossed over to the opposite railing, leaning against it, waiting for her to continue.

"I can't figure out what your game is here," she told him thoughtfully.

He shook his head. "There's no game."

"You seem like a genuinely nice guy. Mia says you're great. Sookie says you're great. Rory absolutely adores you, and it seems like you honestly enjoy spending time with her. And then I come home and find you fixing my porch."

"What's wrong with that?" he asked with a touch of belligerence.

"What's wrong is that it's not your house. It's mine. I'm the homeowner and the mom, and I get to decide if, when, and how my home is repaired. Not you. It's my name on the mortgage. It doesn't say Lorelai V. Gilmore and 'Diner Guy to be Named Later.'"

Luke pushed away from the railing, his hands going back to his hips, and he glared down at the floor. "Because it's charity, right?"

Lorelai looked at him in surprise. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe that wasn't exactly what I was going to say, but yes, that's the gist of it. It's my responsibility to care for our house. This is important to me, to keep a roof over Rory's head. I want to know that I can do it. I _need_ to know I can do it."

He shook his head, looking away over the yard. "When did charity become a bad word?"

Now she looked confused. "I didn't say that."

"But that's what you meant. Everyone seems to feel that way. 'I won't accept charity.' How often do you hear that? All the time, right? And I want to know when helping out a neighbor, helping out a friend, became something you couldn't do? When did it become a flaw to be kind? If I have skills you don't, why is it bad manners for me to offer them? Why am I in the wrong for being kind?" He looked at her, daring her to disagree with him.

Her mouth dropped open, staring at him. A long moment later, she began to laugh. "Seriously? Are you seriously mad at _me _because I won't let you work for free on my house?"

He felt a smile tugging at his own lips. "How would you feel, to have someone questioning your motives?" He shook his head at her. "You sort of hurt my feelings," he said lightly.

She gave another chuckle. "Luke, you can't do this. You can't take it upon yourself to come over here and fix up the Crapshack whenever you feel like it."

"The…Crapshack?"

"It's what Rory and I fondly call our house." She shrugged. "In case you haven't noticed, it needs some work."

"I noticed."

"Yeah, well…" She looked down at the new boards proudly gleaming amongst the weathered ones. "Can we reach some sort of compromise here? Because I'm getting the distinct impression that I'm not going to convince you otherwise."

"Maybe," he said, beginning to feel encouraged.

"How about if I…talk to you when I see something that needs to be fixed? And if you can fix it, you fix it when you have time, but I pay for the materials. That's absolutely non-negotiable. The cost is on me," she said with absolute firmness. "I still don't feel really comfortable with you working to keep my house livable, but maybe over time I'll get used to it. And if you don't want to do it, you need to say so. You won't hurt_ my_ feelings if you refuse."

"I can live with that," Luke said quickly, before she could change her mind.

"_I can live with that_," Lorelai mocked. "Fixing my house, for free, and you can live with that." She laughed sarcastically. "Glad I can make you happy."

"What can I say?" Luke shrugged, smiling. "I have this compulsion to do home repairs."

"How can I argue with that? Maybe we can eventually find you some sort of 12-step program." She pushed away from the railing and carefully made her way back to the door. "It's hot. I think I'll go up and get changed," she commented, motioning at her heels, dress pants, and silky lilac blouse. "I take it that Rory is still at Babette's?"

Luke nodded, and held out his hand to take back his t-shirt.

Lorelai grinned evilly and kept the shirt pressed to her. "Nope, I think I'll keep this longer. Not quite done ogling the sexy carpenter guy who works for free yet."

"You know, if I'd say something like that to you, I'd be some sort of a macho pig," he fumed, irritated at her. "Why is it supposed to be amusing if a woman says that to a guy, but I'd be vilified if I said that to a woman?"

"Ooh, testy," she grinned. "What? You think I can dish it out but can't take it?" With one hand still clutching his shirt, she reached for the fluttering hem of her own blouse.

"You wouldn't –"

Before his shocked eyes, she grasped the bottom of her blouse and pulled it off over her head, which revealed the demure camisole she had on under it.

"Oh, my God! Duke!" She laughed so hard she had to bend her knees, trying to get back in control. "If you could see your face right now!" She lost herself in another laughing fit.

"Not funny," he grumbled.

"Why not? Oh, you want me to go on?" she teased, suggestively fingering the bottom of the camisole.

"Go change," he growled at her, going down to hide his red face at the sawhorses. He could hear her laughing even after she went back into the house.

He was putting things back into his old toolbox when the door opened again. A glass with enticing beads of moisture was being held out from it.

"Truce?" he heard Lorelai ask.

"Truce," he agreed, coming across the floor to take the glass.

Lorelai came out too, dressed now in navy blue short-shorts. Two spaghetti straps over her shoulders, a white one and a red, showed that she had layered on two tank tops. Her hair was held up off her shoulders by a big plastic clip on the back of her head.

Luke took his attention away from her insanely long legs by looking at his drink. "What's the purple stuff?" he asked suspiciously, pointing to something round floating in his glass.

"Oh, those are grapes," she said, as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

"Grapes?"

"Yeah." She relaxed against the railing again, then lifted her own glass at him. "Rory and I don't eat much fruit –"

"Tell me about it," Luke muttered under his breath.

"– but we saw this idea on one of the morning talk shows, about freezing grapes. They said they were a great, cool treat in the summertime, that they made a healthy alternative to popsicles. So we thought we'd try it."

Luke still looked distrustfully at his drink. "And how are they?"

"Eh, OK, I guess. Truthfully, we mostly forgot all about 'em. But since all I had to offer you was water, I wanted to put something in it to fancy it up, and I thought about the grapes."

"Well, sure. That makes so much sense now." Luke chuckled, then took a massive gulp of the water. He _was _thirsty after his afternoon of hard labor. He got one of the grapes in his mouth and crunched it between his teeth.

"What do you think?" Lorelai asked, watching him closely.

"Not bad," Luke decided, maneuvering the glass to get another one. "Not exactly like a popsicle, though."

"I sort of figured that." She drank out of her own glass of water. "Are you done with this?" she asked, looking around the porch.

"Yeah, just cleaning up."

"It looks great. Seriously, Luke, thanks."

"No big deal," he insisted.

She sighed and shook her head. "We're not getting into that conversation again. Once around that particular tree is enough." She motioned at his t-shirt still held over her arm. "So, here's the deal. You want this back? Tell me about the tattoo."

Luke groaned. He raised the cool glass up to his forehead, first tilting the hat brim out of the way.

"'Cause I have to tell you, Duke, you do not seem like the kind of guy to have a tattoo."

"Well, I do," he grumbled.

"Yeah, but I want to know why. Come on, there has to be a story there."

"So I have a tattoo. Lots of people have tattoos," Luke offered, already knowing that she was going to get the whole story out of him, no matter how much he didn't want to tell it.

She hoisted herself up on top of the railing, getting comfortable. Temporarily setting her drink on the rail beside her, she put his shirt over her back so it hung down like a cape, dangling the short sleeves over her shoulders.

"Be careful up there," he warned her, wishing he would have checked on the sturdiness of the railings, too. Then he noticed how perfectly her perch on the railing displayed her gorgeous legs, and he once again quickly looked away.

"Let's hear it. What prompted you to get a tattoo?"

He stared out at nothing, resigned to the telling. "Peer pressure, immaturity, and one beer too many."

Lorelai gasped dramatically. "I had a night like that too, only I ended up with Rory!"

Alarmed, Luke's gaze swerved over to her.

"Kidding," she said, putting up her hands. "Sort of. Go on," she ordered.

"I was 18. Newly graduated from high school, but was still playing in a baseball league over the summer. Well, we won the regional, and went on to the state championship, which was held in Bridgeport that year. One of the guys had an older cousin with his own apartment there, and he threw us a party. It was a big celebration for us with drinks, older girls, a lot of his friends coming by. None of us were used to booze just sitting there, waiting for us to drink it. He lived on this funky little street, with lots of coffee shops and bookstores, you know?"

Lorelai nodded. "And I'm guessing at least one tattoo parlor."

"Unfortunately, yes. All of us were feeling pretty mellow as the night wore on, and pretty sentimental, too. We knew in the fall everything changed, people were going off to college…This was our last hurrah. Somebody got the idea that we should all get tattoos, to remember the night, and off we went."

"Ooh, boy."

"I think after the first guy, we all wanted to chicken out, but too late then, you know?"

"Peer pressure."

"Exactly." Luke gestured with his chin towards his shoulder. "So, tattoo."

"What happened when you got home?"

"Not what I thought. I thought my old man would lay into me about it, but he didn't. He let me know he wasn't happy about it, but he said I was 18 and legally it was my decision. He told me I'd made an impulsive choice that I was going to have to live with the rest of my life, and he thought that was punishment enough. But he told me that he hoped from then on, I'd think twice before I acted. That maybe I'd remember the tattoo, and not be so fast to agree to something foolhardy the next time. And you know what?" Luke looked at her shyly, shaking his head over what he was about to say. "As corny as it sounds, it's worked. I swear I've felt the damn thing itching me when I've been about to make some stupid, impulsive decision through the years."

"Wow." Lorelai looked at him in admiration. "Could you maybe come over here and tell Rory that same story when she hits 18?"

"I'd be glad to," he told her, meaning it sincerely.

"I hate to admit this after the great story, but I can't actually make out what it's a tattoo of. Care to enlighten me?"

Luke groaned again.

Lorelai giggled. "Oh, come on. It can't be that bad."

"Yes, it can," he refuted grimly.

She jumped down from the railing and walked over to where he was leaning. She stood on his right, studying the tattoo, finally reaching out to trace over it with her finger, making goosebumps break out on him, even in the heat.

"Nope, I can't figure it out. You've got to tell me."

"I don't know," he said, grinding the words out between his teeth.

"How can that be? Was your arm not with you while it was getting tattooed?"

"No, I was there with my arm the whole time."

She just looked at him, raising her eyebrows.

He sighed yet again. "We were all pretty wasted. No one was sober enough to make a very good decision at that point, but the one we all agreed to make was probably the stupidest thing we could have done. We decided we'd just open up the guy's book and haphazardly point at a tattoo, and that would be what we'd get."

A laugh burst out of Lorelai. "No! You're kidding! You did not do that!"

"Oh yes we did. That's why I have no idea what this is. It's just some random design, I guess. That's what makes it even more senseless. But at least I fared better than poor Randy ahead of me. He ended up with a butterfly."

Lorelai laughed again, and Luke couldn't ignore that he was pleased that he could make her laugh, even if it was at his own expense.

"Here," she said, turning her back towards him so he could lift his shirt off of her. "You deserve this."

"Finally." He sat down his empty glass and took off his hat, whipping his shirt back on. When his head emerged from the fabric, he saw that Lorelai was watching him intently. Embarrassed, they both backed off, deliberately looking away from each other.

"You got it done!" Rory came clambering up the porch steps, leaping from one new board to another as if it was a hopscotch grid. She ended up next to Lorelai, leaning against her, her arms circling her mother's waist. "Were you surprised, Mom?"

"I certainly was!" Lorelai squeezed her daughter, but gave Luke a significant look, which wasn't lost on Rory.

"I was right, wasn't I?" Rory said smugly to Luke.

"You were right," Luke admitted grudgingly.

"You're not really mad at Luke, though, are you, Mom?" Rory looked pleadingly at Lorelai. "He just didn't want to worry about us living here with a broken porch."

"No, I'm not mad at Luke. At least not now. We've made peace."

"Good." Rory pulled away from her mom and nodded her head confidently. "Because you guys can't be mad at each other if we're all going to the fireworks together."

"We're what?" Lorelai questioned.

"I'm not –" Luke began to say.

"You said you didn't want to go because you don't like crowds," Rory explained to him earnestly. "But you won't be in a crowd. You'll be with us."

"Rory –" Luke tried to sort out his reasoning.

"No, Luke, think about it. You'll be with me, and Mom, and Lane, and we'll be this complete unit, blocking out the rest of the people. You'll have fun with us, I promise. You won't have to deal with the whole crowd of people at all. It'll just be us."

Lorelai was starting to smirk. "Yeah, Luke. You should totally come with us. It'll just be me, and Rory, and Lane. And Sookie. And Albert."

"Who's Albert?" Rory asked, turning a puzzled look Lorelai's way.

"Sookie's new boyfriend. She was nervous about being alone with him all night, so she wanted to hang around with us." Lorelai suddenly squinted up at the sky, then grabbed Luke's wrist, trying to look at his watch. "What time is it?"

Luke shook his wrist out of her grasp, so he could read the dial. "Almost 5."

"Then we need to come to a decision and boogie, because I told Sookie we'd meet her there at about a quarter past."

Rory had been quickly counting. "See, Luke, that's only six people, including you. That's a good number to defend against a crowd. Come with us!"

"Thanks for the offer, but I'd really rather go home," Luke began, feeling a little flustered.

"Please?" Rory took a step closer to him, her eyes suddenly looking as if they were underwater. "You worked so hard today. Don't you _want_ to come with us and have some fun?" Her lips turned downward and her shoulders sagged pitifully.

Luke felt as though the dwarves had come to him and offered him an adventure but he'd had the gall to turn them down. How could he disappoint the poor girl like that?

He licked his lips, trying to explain his desire to skip the town's festivities another way. "Rory, I just don't think…"

"It's my treat." Lorelai broke in, adding her persuasion to Rory's. "This way I can buy you a barbeque dinner and a couple of beers, sort of make a stab at paying you back for your…What was it? Oh yeah, your _kindness_ today." Her grin was teasing. "What's wrong? You have a problem with accepting charity?"

"I…"

"_Please?"_ Rory begged, her blue eyes shimmering.

"Please?" Lorelai echoed, mostly teasing, he knew, but somehow managing to add in a touch of sincerity. "Come on," she sing-songed. "You know you want to. All the cool kids are going."

That was the point where Luke knew he'd given up. "But I'm a hot, sweaty mess. I can't go like this. Let me run home, and –"

"Nope, no time for that! Go upstairs to the good bathroom and get cleaned up," Lorelai ordered. "We'll put your tools away –" she paused for a moment to snicker "– and then we'll all be ready to go."

Luke didn't want to admit it, but barbeque did sound good. The American Legion did a fine job on their grilled chicken and brats, and it had been years since he'd tasted them. "Well…"

Lorelai recognized capitulation when she heard it. "Rory, you run upstairs and get some clean towels laid out for Luke. Find the least girly-smelling soap, too. Maybe he'd like your cotton candy scented body wash."

"The Hello Kitty one?"

"Exactly!"

"Yay! You'll have a good time, Luke, I promise!" Thrilled, Rory ran inside the house, bent on her mission.

Another small period of quiet enveloped the space between Luke and Lorelai, a by-product of Rory's sudden absence.

Luke swallowed kind of hard, glancing at the door where Rory had disappeared. "Boy, she is _really_ good at that," he said sheepishly, trying to explain his change of heart.

"She is, isn't she?" Lorelai sounded proud.

"Yeah, I guess I'm going to have to watch out, or she'll have me twisted around her finger for sure."

Lorelai opened up the door, motioning for Luke to go in. Just as he passed beside her, she leaned towards him confidentially. "Hey, Luke?"

"Yeah?" He looked at her standing right next to him, beautiful and glowing and looking completely mischievous. "What?" he asked warily.

"Just thought I should warn you. You know she learned how to do all of that from me, right?" She almost whispered that disturbing fact directly into his ear. Then she laughed, tried to wink, and pushed him in through the door. "Go get pretty now, Diner Guy."

Luke found the stairs and climbed upwards, apprehensive about the night stretching before him, worried about how easily he'd given in to the manipulation of the Gilmore girls. But he could also admit he was looking forward to seeing what the night might hold before the fireworks shot off.

Once in the bathroom he glanced over at his tattoo, but the ink drawn on his bicep seemed content, not giving any warning at all about tonight's impulsive decision.


End file.
